TORONTO -The shop was empty. The shelves behind the glass display counter were bare, no one was playing at the pool table. But the storekeeper, a woman in traditional Somali dress, was remarkably busy for someone who looked to have nothing for sale. One after another, customers entered her tiny corner store and left carrying small plastic bags containing foot-long plant stems sprouting dark green leaves.

Another shipment of "khat" had arrived.

Khat is a shrub that grows only in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and it has suddenly joined the ranks of Canada's most problematic illicit drugs.

Seventeen tonnes were seized last year in crackdowns in Newfoundland, Quebec, Ontario and Alberta. Police now seize more khat than cocaine, heroin, opium, crack, meth and Ecstasy combined. That's partly because it's a bulky drug. Still, there were almost 900 seizures in 2006.

...

Khat is also the topic of an emerging debate in Canada, one that touches on thorny issues, from the rights of immigrants to the limits of multiculturalism and the influence of Islamist extremists.

...

In Somalia, chewing khat is a daily ritual that dates back hundreds of years. Men gather in the baking afternoons to sit, chew and talk. Khat sessions can last all night.

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When civil war erupted in the late 1980s, and Somali refugees scattered around the world, khat followed them. Canada responded by banning the plant, formally known as catha edulis, under the Controlled Drugs and Substance Act.

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But Canada's khat law is a sore point within the Canadian Somali community, which numbers about 150,000, one of the largest in the world. Khat users complain it has criminalized part of their culture and that it was a result of lobbying by Saudi-educated imams who want to impose their austere codes of conduct on the entire community.

...

"Khat is part of Somali life," said Toronto lawyer Mohamed Doli. "It is entrenched in the Somali communities. It is the way people come together and express themselves, just like you calling a friend and saying, 'Can you join me for a drink today?' "

...

The anti-khat law has not stopped Somalis from chewing, only pushed the industry underground, he said. The price also jumped when it was outlawed, from $15 to $20 a bundle to $60 to $80.

"It is coming in at the same rate as it used to, it's only that it's more expensive. So in terms of preventing khat from reaching Canada, we are not successful. But we are successful to enrich those who bring it in the black market."

Moreover, Mr. Doli said he believes the law is unconstitutional.

If these people truly respected Canada, the country that granted them refuge though I suspect most are bogus refugees, then they would forgo such behaviour. But that is not the case. They willingly chose to break our laws.

Are there limits to multiculturalism? Yes there are and khat chewing is crossing the line. It might not be as potent as many other drugs but it is considered a controlled substance regardless and we shouldn't tolerate it. If chewing khat is important to you then don't come to Canada. Immigrants will come to Canada anyways and for the obvious reasons. If there is something about our country that is disagreeable to them then they just call it a human right and change it with the assistance of the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. Somalis feel their Charter right to get high is being violated and want our laws changed.

Are these the kind of refugees Canada is attracting? Are these the kinds of immigrants Canada wants? Should we tolerate khat chewing? Does Canadian society need another habit forming drug on the market? The answers should be obvious.

OTTAWA and TORONTO -- Ottawa has received its first applications to start up Canadian banks operating within the strictures of Islamic religious law - financial institutions that, if approved, would be among the first in the West.

Canada's bank regulator, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, is studying two proposals for banks that offer services in keeping with Islamic laws that forbid speculation and interest but are in favour of transactions where profit and loss is shared.

The applications came to light in government documents obtained by The Globe and Mail under access to information laws, files that show Ottawa believes there are four other possible applicants keen to start banks operating under Islamic religious law, or sharia.

While some banks in the West offer sharia-compliant products, few aside from the Islamic Bank of Britain are standalone institutions set up expressly for this purpose.

...

Today, however, demand for sharia-compliant products in Canada remains unclear and several Islamic finance companies have folded.

Recall some Muslims in Ontario wanted legal recognition of Sharia Law to operate as a parallel system of jurisprudence to the existing provincial laws. This would have made Ontario the only jurisdiction in the entire west to legally recognize Sharia law. Thankfully, it went nowhere due to opposition from Muslims and non-Muslims. Muslims are also front and center in pushing for public funding for Islamic schools that will operate separate but equal from the public system. Now Muslims have applied for a banking system that will function separate but equal from the existing Canadian banking system.

The question I have to ask is do Muslims sincerely care to integrate into Canadian society? Since actions speak louder than words than the answer is apparently no. It appears to me that they want to be separate but equal. If that's the case then why do we encourage Muslim immigration when they socially isolate themselves from the rest of society and desire to live a parallel existence without fully integrating? If being Muslim is so important to them then why do they immigrate to predominately Christian and secularist societies?

It seems to me that Muslims are desirous to construct an Islamic society within a Canadian legal, cultural, social, and economic framework. It's divisive, it brings social tensions, and it is loud and clear that Muslims are not that interested in preserving anything that is culturally Canadian but care more so to co-opt if not erase it outright. If that is the case then we as a people should rethink Muslim immigration to our country.

We get it, we get it! Torontonians are so much a better people than those white, backwater, racist, inbreeding hicks outside of the city, which essentially means all of Canada, and the U.S., and the whole world actually.

Don't you love it when a member of one racial minority group, in this case Indian, reports on a story about white racist behaviour towards another racial minority group, which in this case is Chinese? It's like an anti-white tag team match.

Let's be honest with ourselves. These stories are published to shame white people and pacify their attitudes towards encroaching multiculturalism and mass immigration. Bull hooey! The attacks on the fishermen are wrong but a pan-Canadian multiculturalism fed by mass immigration is equally wrong. Some Torontonians may cherish the city's multicultural character but many Canadian towns do not want it. Keep it in Toronto please. You have no right to push your multicultural ethos onto the rest of the country. For some of us, if we wanted to live amongst the Chinese we’d move to China. Don’t bring China here because when the Canadian character of every town in this country is erased to favour multiculturalism then where are Canadians supposed to go?

These attacks may be the manifestations of a backlash. Don’t worry. Susan Eng and Avvy Go will be there front and centre to suppress it and make sure the Sinofication of parts of Canada go unabated. In the meantime keep telling yourself “we are a nation of immigrants, diversity is our strength, multiculturalism is the Canadian identify, war is peace, big brother is watching.”

And how long has this toothpast been on the Chinese market? One Chinese commentor writes:

A common perception among the Chinese is that black people have the nicest, whitest teeth, hence the toothpaste. This toothpaste goes waayyyy back. I think my grandparents have even heard of it. But is Darkie Toothpaste any worse than Aunt Jemima products in America? Of course, the name “Darkie” is a lot more offensive, but Aunt Jemima taps into all the slavery days where some house slave cooks for the white family. So I don’t know. Both seem equally offensive to me.

And most Chinese are DEFINITELY racist against black people. I can’t say this is malicious racism like, say, among rednecks in America, but it’s definitely there, and I don’t think the Chinese have this for anyone else in the world EXCEPT blacks. And I don’t think this is only the Chinese but all East Asians. Part of it is that blacks look so different physically from the Chinese. Of course, Caucasians look different from the Chinese too, but since Western pop culture influences so much, the Chinese let that slide.

Well I'll be darned. This toothpaste has been on the Chinese market for a long time which means this kind of racism is acceptable in China. The commentator goes on to state that "most Chinese are DEFINITELY racist against black people." This may explain why Asians are largely absent in black neighbourhoods but can be seen moving into predominately white ones if not exclusively Asian neighbourhoods altogether.

I had had a similar sentiment expressed to me personally by someone who is Chinese but Chinese in ancestry only. This person was more Canadian that Chinese. This person is what other Chinese would frankly call a “banana”: yellow on the outside, white on the inside as though that were a bad thing. This person said quite candidly that "Chinese are generally racist." It was also related to me by another individual that those considering teaching English overseas should understand that that those of a black or dark skinned complexion are not highly regarded by the people in Asian and South East Asian countries (China, Taiwan, Viet Nam, Japan, etc.).

I bring this up because China is the top source of immigrants to Canada and they bring these prejudices with them when they come here. The fact that Darkie Toothpaste existed in China for so long without offense says a lot about them as a culture. They do not suddenly purge themselves of these prejudices when they arrive in Canada and it is reflected in much of their behavior particularly in their settlement patterns and social groupings.

Many Asian immigrants play Canadians for suckers by abusing this country’s citizenship laws and frankly we are suckers for allowing them to do it. Their spouses, children, and aged parents may be in Canada, benefiting from our social services, but the other spouse is back in Hong Kong making a lot of money while reporting a poverty income in Canada to avoid taxes.

Why am I writing all of this? I am trying to present a balanced picture in light of the incidents that occurred in Sutton, Ontario. Asian-Canadians may have been the victims of racism and discrimination but they are equally racist and discriminatory in their own ways. They are not the innocent victims they like to play themselves off as.

In light of what has been happening in Sutton for the past two decades or so I think it is time we Canadians met our ethnic neighbours in the hopes that we may better understand each other and will become more readily accepting of them as Canadians.

A case of alleged blatant reverse racism has caused a major public furor in the Greater Vancouver area. Long-ignored by many in the media, but long-endured by many in Canada's host population, reverse racism has struck lease-holders in a 12-business strip mall in Surrey, British Columbia.

The strip mall was purchased in late July by H-Mart, a Korean grocery business catering to Korean immigrant shoppers. Three long-term businesses, which have been in the mall from 10 to 25 years, have been told to move----allegedly to make way for Korean businesses .

John Pook of Peter Pook Insurance, which has been in business for 50 years and has operated in the mall for 25 years, was shocked when he was told he had to vacate within three months. The Province, a B.C. daily, quotes Mr Pook as saying: "I had a verbal agreement with the previous owner and I just expected we would be staying. They're making this into an Asian shopping plaza and I guess we don't fit the bill."

June Lee, the project manager for H-Mart, said the argument that the entire mall would cater to the Korean or even the larger Asian community makes no sense because there isn't enough of a population base to support it.

Statistics Canada estimates there about 5,000 Koreans in Surrey and less than 1,000 in Langley. The largest Asian group in both cities is Chinese.

The number of people of Asian descent in those cities pales in comparison with Richmond, B.C., where several Asian-themed shopping centres have been built deliberately over the last 10 years.

About 60 per cent of Richmond's population are members of a visible minority, with the largest share being Chinese.

The above is old news, I know, but it happened anyways and I am sure it happens more often they we care to imagine. Asians are racist in very subtle ways. They won't be as blatant as those thugs in Sutton choosing, rather, to be more covert about it. For starters Asians prefer to live amongst their own. They prefer to socialize with their own. They build shopping malls to cater exclusively to them. They erect language and cultural barriers in their communities that pretty much tell anyone that "if you are not Asian then we don't want you here except as a visitor."

If you don't believe me on any of this then see for yourself. Go to the Pacific mall in Markham and see how welcome you are there. Go to Asian only neighbourhoods and see how well you fit in. Go to York University, the University of Toronto, or even Ryerson and see how many Asians are socializing with non-Asians. This kind of observed behavior is not exclusive to Asian-Canadians but since they are the one’s some finger pointing lately I thought it only fair that I hold up a mirror.

York Region force to investigate whether attacks on fishermen were racially motivated

Sep 28, 2007 04:30 AM Paola Loriggio STAFF REPORTER

York Region police have launched hate-crime investigations into four incidents of "nippertipping," acts of violence or mischief targeting mostly Asian-Canadians.

Note – Note how the article says “mostly Asian-Canadians”. That’s because some of those assaulted were not Asian but of another race. The act of violence involves pushing them into the water.

"We are actively investigating the incident," said Staff Sgt. Ricky Veerappan, of the department's diversity and cultural resources bureau, referring to a Sept. 16 incident that left Toronto resident Shayne Berwick, 23, in a coma.

Berwick had been fishing with a group of friends that included Asian-Canadians.Three other cases, dating back to the spring, are now also under investigation as hate crimes, Veerappan said. All took place in the Lake Simcoe area."We look at news reports and say, `What? Today?' This is Toronto," said Susan Eng, of The Reference Group, a community group focused on equal access to the political process.

Zanana Akande, former president of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations, said the incidents affect all communities. "`Nipper' is not far from `nigger,'" Akande said.…

When radio show host Simon Li brought up "nippertipping" on Tuesday's edition of Power Politics, his nightly Chinese-language call-in show, he was shocked by the response. More than 10 people shared stories of harassment and assault, Li said. One caller, a Chinese-Canadian man, said he was recently held at gunpoint while fishing in the Lake Simcoe area.

Note - Bull on that Chinese caller. He’s fabricating. I don’t believe him for a second.

Part of the problem is the Criminal Code's narrow definition of a hate crime, said Karen Mock, who chaired the hate crimes community working group, a government advisory team.

By law, hate-crime charges can only be laid when someone advocates genocide or disseminates hate propaganda, she said.

In a report published last December, the group urged the federal government to recognize "hate incidents," non-criminal offences motivated by bias or bigotry, such as harassment.

So apparently these "nippertipping" incidents are not "hate crimes" as defined by the law but it looks like some want to broaden it to included "non-criminal offences motivated by bias or bigotry, such as harassment." I don't agree with this because I suspect immigration and multiculturalism critics such as I can be charged under such a vague definition. What constitutes bias or bigotry and harassment? It seems “hate crime” laws are more concerned with silencing criticism and dissent than they are with protecting people. And who gets charged with "hate crimes" anyways? I cannot recall off the top of my head anyone who is non-white, or non-Christian I might add, that has had their butts hauled before a human rights tribunal at personal expense. It's probably because only whites are discriminatory and racists. Yeah, that's probably it.

My point in blogging on this is that these kinds of attacks should be expected and I expect more will come in the future and not just in “nippertipping” incidents alone. The reason is that many Canadians are dissatisfied with Toronto style multiculturalism and mass immigration but they have no way to express it because the state and the media do not allow it. Many just shut up and pretend that nothing is happening. Many leave the city and go where they hope that they can live with fellow Canadians in a Canadian setting. However some get fed up and they feel that they have to do something.

The civil and democratic way would be to allow an honest debate on mass immigration and multiculturalism and encourage Canadians to express their dissatisfaction vocally without fear of being labeled a bigot, a racist, a xenophobe, etc. But that is not how it is in Canada, at least outside of Quebec anyways. We are told to shut up and like it and if we don’t like it then we have legislation forcing us to like it. To complement that we have an Orwellian style re-education program that promotes the merits of a less Canadian Canada replete with such slogans as “Diversity is our Strength,” “We are a nation of immigrants,” “Multiculturalism is the Canadian identity,” “Ignorance is Strength,” “War is Peace,” “Big Brother is Watching.”

Forced into silence Canadians will take their anger out on immigrants. This is unfair because it is not the fault of immigrants. It is the fault of the elite left leaning social reengineers who bear no responsibility for the consequences their decisions have on the lives other people. It is they who decided that the “whitness” of Canada is a problem. It is they who promote mass immigration from the third world and then expect Canadians to accommodate these people as they move into their neighbourhoods and change it against Canadians’ desires. Bear in mind many of these elite decision makers do not live in the multicultural neighbourhoods they espouse is good medicine for others let alone whose jobs and incomes are threatened by mass immigration. What right do these people have to do this? Why should Canadians be forced to burden the consequences of the decisions of an elite minority? Do you think Canadians are just going to sit passively as they watch the transformation of their country into an increasingly foreign and unrecognizable one? I predict that many Canadians will become passive/aggressive towards immigrants or outright aggressive as in the “nippertipping” incidents.

I am not trying to excuse the actions of those in Sutton but I am trying to get to the roots of their behaviour. It is the best way to deal with the issue. Susan Eng, Avy Go, and other professional white-racist hunters are just oppressing a deep rooted problem. It will not go away that easily. There is a reason why some in Sutton do not like the Chinese fishing at the lake. Perhaps they are symbolic of an encroaching multicultural “Sinofied” Markham that they thought they could escape by moving to Sutton. Perhaps they realize that the Chinese do not assimilate but behave more like cultural colonizers and will transform Sutton they way they transformed parts of Toronto and the GTA. But maybe it’s because the people in Sutton do not want to associate with the Chinese the way the Chinese do not care to associate with anyone else.

Multiculturalism is turning Canada into a less tolerant place. To avoid this we need to reduce immigrant numbers. We also need to impose a quota type system so that the racial balance is not disrupted but maintained. This will tame the fear possessed by whites of becoming a minority in their own country which Canada’s current immigration is dooming them to become. Canadians will become more tolerant of racial minorities and not fear them as racial and cultural colonizers. Believe it or not Canada is predominately of European ancestry and it should stay that way to maintain social order. Right now Canada’s current immigration system is akin to population replacement. It’s great if you’re Indian or Chinese because you get another country. Canadians on the other hand lose the only one they had and how is that just?

Friday, 28 September 2007

Here is some of the enlightened commentary from our Canadian betters in Toronto.

“As "multicultural" as we like to think ourselves, step 20km out of Toronto and you might as well be in Mississippi in the 40's.”

...

“nipper.tipping.

what.de.ass?

and you're right, just head north the gee tee eh, and you're heading into coon-huntin' territory (and you know i'm not talking about the furry little mammals that up-end your garbage cans in the dead of night, either).

once i got lost in sutton en route to a girlfriend's baby shower, and as i circled the block numerous times looking for the house, a family of four who had been out for their afternoon jaunt stopped dead in their tracks and stared at me as i pulled into the driveway. the look they gave me sent shivers up my spine.

nothing happened, but damn, it was as if they'd never seen an "honest-to-goodness, real-live one" before, and it was just amazing to me that i was only 1/2 hour outside of where i live.”

...

It certainly sounds like closed-mindedness and racially motivated to me. This is one of the reasons I can't imagine living outside of a large city - I can't and won't tolerate it.

...

Pretty freaking disgusting. Ironic that people often tout small-town or rural values as so much more "wholesome" than their urban counterparts, and yet this kind of racist undercurrant is still undeniably part of the culture.

...

Do the words racist, stereotyping, generalizations, paranoia, condescending, and arrogant come to mind?

Ever see the film Birth of A Nation? These Torontonians remind me of the once slave holding Southern Family whose fair daughters need to be protected from interbreeding with the white rural Ontarian/Freed Slaves. It’s comical.

It's interesting how racism is being used to combat racism isn't it? The generalizing that is going around about white rural Ontarians, and western Canadians, is tantamount to racism in my eyes. And the Toronto Star has just thrown fuel on the fire in its one sided piece on "nippertipping". I came across this on FishOntario Forums.

They were talking about it on a call in talk show this morning. A guy from sutton calls in and says.

"I don't want to sound racist but all of those people from over there come here and fill there buckets full of OOS fish and us locals are mad about it"

Makes you think.

Yeah it did make me think. I started to think that maybe the Asians brought this ire upon themselves. How many of them are actually fishing without a license which is a provincial offense? Is it likely that so many Asians have flooded into the area that they have taken up the best fishing spots and are depleting the stocks by hauling away so much fish on a weekly basis? Perhaps there has been a general increase of fishermen in the area that has provoked local irritation. This would explain why the police received incidents of “other races” (read white) being pushed in as well. Did the Star reporter bother to investigate this or was the white bogey man angle more pleasing to the Stars increasing Asian immigrant reader base? These are some questions that need to be answered before we start to shout Hate Crime.

I don't condone the actions of those who pushed those Asian fishermen into the water because I wouldn't appreciate it if it was me. It is wrong no matter who the victim is. But I am starting to think that maybe the Asians instigated it. This doesn't excuse the behaviour of those who did the pushing but it doesn't mean that the Asians are not also partly to blame. There are two sides to every story. Unfortunately the Star chose to publish one side only and now rural white Ontarians are being generalized as racists. This is also from FishOntario Forums:

Not to surprise anyone but racism is alive and well in small town Ontario unoficially ofcourse.

Thursday, 27 September 2007

Community groups and anti-racism advocates are calling for police and politicians to address a series of assaults against Asian-Canadians as hate crimes.

They plan to make the demand at a press conference this morning in response to an article in yesterday's Star, which revealed a disturbing practice happening around the small town of Sutton on Lake Simcoe.

Locals have dubbed it "nippertipping" and say it's been going on for years.

...

Avvy Go, a lawyer with the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, said the goal of today's press conference is to get police to do their job.

Avy Go never misses a chance to paint Chinese Canadians as victims of discrimination and racism. It's her raison d'etre and its how she makes her living. Yet the Chinese community is one of the worst offenders when it comes to racism and discrimination in Canada. I'm sure Avy Go knows this and you don't need a study to prove this either. You just need enough exposure to Chinese immigrants to realize this. Some immigrant groups invite negative attention and the Chinese community is no exception but this does not justify physical assault like those that happened in Sutton, Ontario. Well, they were just pushed into the water but even so.

Calling it a "hate crime" is going too far. The police have stated that people of other racial backgrounds, including white, have filed complaints. Maybe Avvy Go didn't get that far in the Toronto Star article preferring the "whites are racists" slant. If she is going to start calling people racists she better get her facts straight. After all, isn't that libel?

Asian-Canadians report being shoved into water while fishing near Sutton; police deny racial link

Sep 26, 2007 04:30 AMRobyn DoolittleStaff Reporter

With a bucket of minnows, a few flashlights and fishing poles in tow, Ray Lam and his friends make the hour-and-a-bit drive from Thornhill to Lake Simcoe once or twice a week. They arrive just before midnight and stay for a few hours, casting lines in darkness along one of the docks outside the town of Sutton.

Note - Thornhill is located directly north of Toronto. A portion of it resides in the city of Vaughn and the other in Markham. Markham is approcimatle 30% ethnic Chinese, rapidly becoming another Chinese colony of Canada.

But at all times they keep a careful eye on the long weeds behind them.

Since April there have been three cases of assault, mischief and theft against the mostly Asian-Canadian fishermen in the area.

...

Local youth call it "nippertipping

It consists of locals driving around in the middle of the night, looking for cars parked near piers, docks and bridges. They then creep up behind fishermen and shove them into the lake. Sometimes the fishermen's gear is tossed in or damaged.

"Nip" is a derogatory word for Japanese, apparently used in this context for anyone of Asian descent. "Tipping" refers to a rural prank known as cow tipping. Some townspeople say it's been happening for decades, occasionally triggering gossip but nothing more."

...

Police say the assaults aren't racially motivated. "There's been three occurrences in 2007 where fishermen, both male and female of many ethnic backgrounds, have been assaulted by persons while they're fishing here," said Det. Sgt. Bill Sadler of York police. "In some cases (they've been) pushed in the water. But they're not specifically directed at Asians."

Some locals "don't like foreigners" said one man, who did not want his name used. "It's been happening since I was young – nippertipping," said the 20-year-old. "Everybody talks about doing it – `Oh, I went down to the docks the other night and roughed up some Asians.' I guess they think it sounds cool. But it doesn't happen often at all."

Though the police state that the assaults are not racially motivated the fact that it is called "nippertipping" does say something about it. However, it just may be that it is mostly Asians that are at the piers and the local whites go out in boats and therefore Asians will make up a considerable number of available targets. Whatever the reasons are I can assure you that every ethnic minority group will jump on this and stereotype rural white Canadians as backwater racist hicks. It's just one of the many double standards that exist in tolerant, multicultural Canada. If we're not labeling Americans as racists then we’re labeling rural or Western Canadians.

Voices opposing mass immigration and multiculturalism are denied speaking time in tolerant and multicultural Canada. Therefore Canadians will express themselves in other ways and they will express it towards the immigrants themselves. It may be the cold shoulder approach, moving away to a smaller town like Sutton, or even assault. The real targets of Canadian dissatisfaction should be the immigration industry and the politicians who use Canada’s immigration policy for personal gain and not the immigrants themselves because it’s not their fault that they are here. Other people let them in without Canada’s consent and to attack immigrants is unjust.

The best way to avoid future racial conflicts is to allow an open and honest discussion about the consequences of mass immigration and multiculturalism and whether or not the majority of Canadians want this. They are Canadians and they live in Canada and they want to live with other Canadians. But for some, the neighborhoods they once lived in have been transformed into reflections of foreign countries right before their eyes and so they move away. When it follows them to areas they thought were safe they get irritated. Canadians are losing their country to multiculturalism fuelled by mass immigration.

I will not go on to say that these assaults were racially motivated but we can expect incidents similar to this to occur in the future as Canada becomes less and less a representation of its former self. As Canada continues its program of population replacement (the replacement of whites with other racial minority groups) Canadians will want to express their dissatisfaction with this social reengineering but are often silenced by accusations of racism and threatened with Canada's "hate crime" laws. An open discussion on the subject has been long denied Canadians. That’s why I applaud what is going on in Quebec right now. If Canada fails to follow Quebec’s example and publicly discuss “reasonable accommodation” then Canada will become a less tolerant place. And if you think it will only be whites who will be the perpetrators then think again.

Debate on mass immigration and multiculturalism is oppressed in Canada favouring the pro side. Those who are oppressed tend to act out. How will they do it? Let's just hope it's civil.

Tuesday, 25 September 2007

Another challenge, particularly in the GTA, is immigrant poverty. Although most newcomers are well-educated, Toronto has some ethnic neighbourhoods with twice as many university graduates as the national average yet double the poverty.

Accreditation issues and many employers' insistence on Canadian experience are the most publicized hurdles immigrants face when they look for work, but language barriers round out the dreary list. I've heard it all from the newcomers who attend my adult ESL class.

Note - Canadian employers are right to be suspicious of foreign credentials. It is well known that in India a University degree can be purchased instead of earning it. Many immigrants with legitimate foreign credentials fail to pass Canadian standards tests particularly in the medical fields; a fact the Toronto Star doesn't care to acknowledge.

However discrimination does exist among Canada's professional classes. They, like the rest of us, are in danger of falling income levels due to the mass importation of skilled labour. To prevent this they practice a catch-22 for immigrants to Canada to prevent them from getting licensed and thus restrict the labour supply. They expect immigrants to have "Canadian experience" in order to be fully employed in their field yet to get that Canadian experience they need Canadian experience. But what is Canadian experience anyway? Why does an immigrant's engineering work in a western country get discounted when he or she arrives in Canada? It's a ridiculous expectation when you think about it.

These students come from all over the world, but share a common conviction that lifelong learning is the key to their success.

And for many of them, success is all about their children. Parents want to understand what's going on at school, talk to their children's teachers, and make enough money so they can support their further education.

But my students can't do that unless they learn more English to get work, job training or further education themselves.

Note - Canadians are told that immigrants must perform language proficiency tests in order to get into Canada yet apparently many are arriving here with little knowledge of French of English. Why is that? The most likely explanation is that many immigrants, if not most, enter Canada as sponsored immigrants via the family reunification act. These immigrants do not need to display a command of either French or English. These immigrants do not even need to posses marketable job skills. This is a major reason why poverty rates are higher among immigrants. Canada is importing too many immigrants that should not be here.

Four years ago one of them, Linda Zhai, summed up the value of adult education in a deputation to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance:

"In China, I was a regional sales manager of an international pharmaceutical company. But I immigrated from Shanghai to Toronto with my husband and 9-month-old daughter, because we wanted a life of freedom in a multicultural, tolerant society.

Note - I can assure you that the Chinese do not care about multiculturalism. Like many ethnic groups they cluster together and socialize with their own. Don't believe me? Visit the University of Toronto anytime of the school year and see for yourself. Still not satisfied? Then visit one of Toronto's three Chinatowns. That's right, I said three. Dundas and Spadina, Gerrard St. East, and the Richmond Hill and Markham areas that are roughly 30% ethnic Chinese and growing. Agincourt in Scarborough is sometimes referred to as "Asiancourt" because of the large concentration of Chinese immigrants there. Multiculturalism is important to the Chinese outside of China because it allows them to remain Chinese while enjoying the benefits of living in Canada without the hassle of fully committing to the country.

I can also assure you that the Chinese are some of the most intolerant and racist people living in the Toronto Area. Don’t believe me? Go to one of their shopping areas. See how multicultural and diverse their staff is at their restaurants and businesses. Try and order something on a menu at one of their restaurants. See how rare English is at a Chinese shopping mall in Toronto. Non Chinese among Chinese social groups are as common as a black man at a KKK rally. Tolerance in Canada is a one way street. Canadians are expected to be tolerant of everyone else but rarely is that tolerance returned. Don't believe me? When was the last time a cultural minority group made concessions to accommodate Canadians?

It is also interesting to note that she and her husband have a nine month old daughter. If she and her husband fit the par with many Chinese "Canadians" it is most likely she will have the only child. Chinese in Canada have a lower birth rate than the national average, with 1.3 births vs. the national rate of 1.5. So Chinese immigrants in general do little to help the birth rate but of course most immigrants do not either. However, if they import their parents then they will help worsen Canada's aging demographic. This is why Canada should severely limit the family reunification scheme to just the nuclear family.

"In Canada, we faced cultural and language barriers. We struggled to make a living. I became a cashier at Pizza Pizza. I worked there for two years until I had a chance to upgrade my English at an advanced ESL class funded by the Ontario government.

This woman worked as a regional sales manager for a pharmaceutical company in China yet she and her husband came to Canada for "a better life"? This story is more common than you might think. Many immigrants already live a "better life" in their respective home countries so why do they come to Canada?

The poverty problem in Canada is augmented by mass immigration. Canada imports too many immigrants it doesn't need. I know. I've heard it many times too. Canada has a red hot economy but according to a recent McLean’s magazine article the Canadian economy is not as red hot as we believe when compared to other countries. Compared to them it is underperforming. For instance Spain is on its way to unseating Canada at the G8 that is if Australia doesn't get there first. But most importantly we are importing immigrants for which a job in their field is not waiting for them and it probably does not exist. The job shortages Canada is experiencing are predominately in the low wage retail and hospitality sectors. That’s why immigrants with PhDs are driving taxis.

Another factor compounding the problem is the sponsored relatives of landed immigrants. When Canada accepts one skilled landed immigrant you are actually getting the whole family, nuclear and extended. This includes the parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, etc. who do not need language skills or job skills but need to work nonetheless. Further compounding this problem are economic migrants abusing Canada’s lax refugee system. They, too, do not need to posses any language skills or job skills to enter Canada as a refugee and they, too, can sponsor relatives. And it is also all too common for these sponsorship agreements to break down and the relative becomes a client of the tax payer. (Actually they don’t really break down. It is just another scam to get relatives into the country).

Compounding the poverty problem even further is that these immigrants compete for jobs that many poor Canadians depend on thus maintaining low income levels if not depreciating them outright. Mass immigration adds to Canada’s poverty levels. It does not alleviate them.

What is most disheartening about this is that Canada continues to entice immigrants to come here only to sidetrack their lives and possibly ruin their careers. This is predominately the fault of immigration lawyers who need the steady flow of clients and politicians who pander to ethnic voters to get reelected. How are we being compassionate to immigrants when we continue to deceive them about their job prospects here in Canada? It is time to speak out.

Saturday, 22 September 2007

Older mothers leading miniboomStatistics Canada; For first time, more babies born to women over 30Allison Hanes, National PostPublished: Saturday, September 22, 2007

Professional women in their early 30s who have postponed motherhood to build careers appear to be on the leading edge of a mini baby boom, in the first demographic showing of a societal shift toward more older mothers than younger.

For the first time, women in the 30-to-34-age bracket have outpaced younger mothers in producing children, according to the latest demographic data from Statistics Canada.

Note - I think these women will change their minds if they read a McLean’s Magazine piece on Canadian birth rates. It describes how women hit a "glass ceiling" when they have children and that most female CEOs and upper managers are child less. The implication is that career oriented women hit a career rut after child birth and are thus less inclined to have many children if any at all.

There are many reasons why Canada has a low birth rate. One of the chief reasons is that women today are more selfish than ever. I say this not to be insulting but to describe that women today, and men equally so, are more concerned about themselves more than anything. Relationships are built to fulfill personal needs and not built out of a genuine concern and love for another. That would require a selfless impulse. Having children is also selfless and Canadians just can't bother themselves to do that. If you think my calling of the modern Canadian woman as selfish is harsh and judgmental just bear in mind that the two most common reasons for abortion in Canada is that having a child would interfere with career goals or education or both. And in the vast majority of cases, abortion is murder. If dehumanizing the fetus makes murder all the more palatable for you then just keep telling yourself that a fetus is not really a human being. That's what the Nazi's considered the Jews as they gassed them in Auschwitz and the Europeans considered the Africans as they took the newly born children away from their crying mother’s arms to be sold into slavery. "They don't feel emotions the way we do," the slave traders would tell themselves. By they way, over 100,000 abortions are performed in Canada each year at tax payer expense. Now there's a good place to start to affect positive population growth.

For these women, having a child is just another "thing" to augment their social standing and so they have a child before their womb dries up and dies.

"My hunch would be that these are women who postponed their pregnancies and are now reaching a period where if you're going to have a child it's now or never," said Amelie Quesnel-Vallee, a sociologist at McGill University in Montreal.

They'll most likely have just one child even though they can afford to have more. After nine months and a caesarian section they'll just hand off their child rearing responsibilities to a Filipino nanny and be absent for the most important years of a child's developmental life because mommy has a career that needs to be nursed, which is, after all, the only child she cares about anyway.

However there are many women, and men, who dearly want children but economic factors prevent them from doing so. There has been an assault on families since the mid 1970s spearheaded by the private sector with complicit government support. If Ottawa wants to reverse the low fertility rate trend it needs to support Canadian families.

Even this latest boost was not spread evenly across the country. Births actually fell in four provinces -- Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick -- as well as the Yukon Territory. Ontario experienced a slight uptick of just under 1%, leaving Quebec and Alberta out front with 3.1% and 3.3% increases respectively.

Kevin Milligan, a professor of economics at the University of British Columbia, said these two provinces show opposite ends of the spectrum in the economic conditions that encourage fertility.

"In Alberta, what you see is the economy is growing very quickly and there's lots of employment and lots of wage increases. People are very confident about their future, they're confident about future incomes -- they'll be able to afford to have children. That may be what's driving things in Alberta," he said.

"In Quebec, what's happened there is a lot of policy development over the last decade that's made it perhaps more affordable to have a child because the price is going down."

Secure economic futures and government support: these two factors are attributed to an increase in birth rates in the two provinces leading in Canadian childbirths. These two factors were also in place during the post war baby boom causing Canada to have the largest birth rate in the industrialized world. These two factors, unfortunately, saw their dissolutions start in the mid 1970s sucker punching the economic prospects of those born in that decade and derailing Canada's future fertility rates. That's why thirty years later Canada has historically low birth rates. It's because it is harder to financially care for children, to say nothing of taking care of you, since the post war period.

Canada needs to adopt policies to support its families if population growth and labour shortages are a real concern.Newfoundland has already taken steps in that direction. Ottawa needs to follow. We cannot depend on the private sector. The public sector needs to take the initiative. France has also experienced an increase in birth rates due to government actions. This is what Canada needs to do for the sake of its future.

Dependence on mass immigration is not the solution. It never was. I argue it has contributed to more problems today than it has solved. Historically Canada's population growth was due to a natural increase and less so on immigration. It is only recently that Canada has had to turn to immigration solely for its population growth. However, StatsCan has found that immigrant women have the same birth rates as their Canadian counterparts. Most ethnic groups fall within or below Canada's current birth rate of 1.5 with Muslims and Hindus exceeding it. Immigrants may bring three or four kids to Canada but it is likely their children will have small families if they have kids at all.

Canada's low birth rate is a domestic problem that requires a domestic solution, not a foreign one. Canada needs to enact polices that support families and encourages child births. It should help those who want to have kids and tax those who don't. This is the best way to solve Canada's low fertility rate. We need more Canadian children, not more immigrants. Where will Canada get the money to support its people? How about from immigration? It is estimated that it costs Canadians around $2-4 billion a year just to service it. It we dramatically cut numbers and concentrate on the importation of people who have jobs waiting for them here and their nuclear families only, then this would free up hundreds of millions of tax dollars a year. This money could then be redirected to address Canada’s fertility rate concerns in the form of tax rebates or baby bonuses. I know immigration lawyers and those employed in the immigration industry would object but they should go get real jobs.

Canadian immigration authorities are spreading the message that Canada does not give preferential treatment to illegal Mexican refugees in an effort to counteract misinformation that has sent scores of migrants sneaking across the border from the United States.

As the U.S. cracks down on illegal immigrants, organizations and websites there are "providing false or misleading information on how to claim refugee status in Canada," reads a fraud warning posted on Citizenship and Immigration Canada's website.

For 15 years, Manuel Ortega was living his version of the American Dream in Florida.

He had steady employment, sometimes working as a detailer for local car dealers, other times as a forklift driver. He earned enough to buy a van and rent a house for his wife and three children. His kids earned good grades in school and played with the family pet, a Shih Tzu named Chaparro (Shorty). They were safe and kept out of trouble.

Ortega's dream, as he recounted it Tuesday standing outside a room at a Windsor motel, is now but a memory. He is one of an estimated 180 Mexicans from Florida who've rushed across the border and into Windsor to claim refugee status, fleeing a crackdown on illegal aliens in Florida.

Local agencies that work with refugees have been told to brace for 4,000 to 8,000 refugee claimants.

...

Ortega said his fear of being deported to Mexico intensified within the past three months as immigration officials became more visible on the streets and the incidents of deportation of his acquaintances increased.

When his American neighbour threatened to report him to authorities, he told his family to pack-up. They simply couldn't risk returning to Mexico, where he says he fears the powerful drug cartels, corrupt government and poor living conditions.

Note - The Ortegas are not convention refugees. They are just fleeing bad living conditions which, unfortunately, affects about 80% of the world's population. If the Ortegas reasons for seeking refugee status are legitimate then technically Mexico's 100 million citizens can make similar claims. This is unreasonable.

Immigration lawyer John Rokakis said seven Mexicans came through his door Tuesday with Legal Aid certificates paying for three hours of a lawyer's time. Monday he saw three others and had a steady trickle last week as well.

Few will have successful refugee claims, he predicted. "Of the ones I've seen there are maybe one or two that may have something," he said. One is a man who sought political asylum in the United States and was denied.

In the short term, the refugee claimants are the guests of city taxpayers. Some have U.S. bank accounts they can't access and others are destitute.

Teresa Piruzza, executive director of Ontario Works said, as of Monday, ten families and 18 individuals had applied for social assistance. "We're just starting to process them," Piruzza said of the applications.

Welfare currently pays up to $548 per month for individuals and $1,193 for families with two children under the age of 13.

The Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms allows refugees to collect welfare as well as full health benefits even though they are not Canadian citizens. This is all thanks to the disastrous Singh decision of 1986. A crafty immigration lawyer successfully argued that anybody on Canadian soil is protected by the Charter, citizen or not. A refugee has all the rights and benefits a Canadians citizen does except the right to vote. I have a problem with this. You should to. Your Canadian citizenship should be worth something.

Mexican refugees have a low acceptance rate, somewhere around 13% which is still too high. They are targeting Canada because this country has an international reputation of being the easiest country to get into in the industrialized world. The refugee claim allows them an appeal process that can take years. In the meantime they abuse our citizenship laws and have children born here in hopes that it will help their case. This is a scam and it costs Canadian taxpayers a lot of money.

Our citizenship laws and refugee laws need to be changed. They are wide open for abuse. I do not believe that every child born on Canadian soil should be given Canadian citizenship. That privilege should only be given to Canadian citizens. Our refugee laws are too lax and the appeal process is too long. And the Canadian government should use the notwithstanding clause in the Charter and end the inglorious legacy of the Singh decision. We need to regain control of are borders.

Refugee overloadMayor appeals to Ottawa for help as city faces social services crunchDoug Schmidt and Dave Battagello, Windsor StarPublished: Thursday, September 20, 2007

With city shelters full and a surge of further refugee claimants expected to flood into Windsor, Mayor Eddie Francis is pleading for financial help from Ottawa.

"When there is a possibility of adding thousands to the local social assistance system as a result of refugee claimants crossing the border into Windsor, we will become overwhelmed and our current resources will not suffice," Francis said in a letter sent Wednesday to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Over the past three weeks, 45 families and 31 individuals -- approximately 200 people -- entered Canada at the Detroit River crossings and applied in Windsor for shelter and social assistance after filing refugee claims with the Canada Border Services Agency. Municipal agencies dealing with the sudden influx of mainly Mexican refugee applicants are renting hotel rooms and bracing for predicted thousands more to come.

...

"I don't believe that Windsor's residents and taxpayers should have to foot the bill for U.S. immigration policy," Francis told The Star. He was referring to the suspected source of the problem -- a recent crackdown on illegal immigrants in economically struggling regions of the U.S. South.

With the bulk of the latest arrivals being long-time Mexican illegals dislodged from their homes and workplaces in southwestern Florida, fingers are being pointed at unscrupulous outfits charging money and then directing desperate individuals and their families toward the Windsor border crossing.

...

"The fact someone wants to come here for better economic opportunity or a better quality of life ... that's no basis for a successful refugee claim," said Immigration Refugee Board (IRB) spokesman Charles Hawkins.

The Canadian Council for Refugees, a non-profit organization which helps refugees, has also issued a warning about the scams and has asked the federal government to intervene.

But a group operating out of Naples, Fla., vowed to continue sending the so-called economic refugees to Windsor.

"They ask, 'Is Canada an option?' and I say, 'Yes, it is an option,'" Jacques Sinjuste of the Jerusalem Haitian Community Center said in a phone interview Wednesday. For a US$300 "donation" (most of those interviewed in Windsor claim they paid US$400), JHCC staff download forms off the Internet, help applicants fill them out and give directions on how to get to the Canadian border.

Canada signed a safe third country agreement with the U.S. concerning refugees. If we enforce it then these immigrants just wasted their time and money. They will, and should, be sent back to the United States to make their refugee claim. We should not reward them for their actions. These are not real refugees. They are economic migrants many of whom broke U.S. immigration laws. If Canada rewards them by granting them asylum and eventual citizenship then we can expect a literal flooding of our refugee system by Mexicans much like Canada experienced with Sri Lankan Tamils and Somalis in the 1990s.

Mexico has jumped to the top spot on Canada's top ten refugee producing countries and now you can see why. Canada should award asylum to legitimate refugees but the fact is most refugees to Canada are not refugees at all. They are economic migrants abusing the most relaxed and the most trusting refugee system in the world and it is financially taxing for Canadian taxpayers.

I sympathize for their economic plight but their problems are not Canada's to solve. Canada has its own poverty issues to deal with and much of it is generated by an out of control immigration system. The economic poverty of Mexicans is Mexico's responsibility. The thing is illegal Mexican immigration into the U.S. and Canada is how the Mexican government is handling the issue. It is outsourcing this responsibility so to speak to the U.S. and Canada. Should we be complicit and co-operate? If we do then Mexico will do nothing about it and Mexico’s social problems will be ours.

Newspaper readership trends remain stable in Canada's four biggest markets despite the growing popularity of online editions, according to a study released yesterday.

...

Baby boomers remain a key demographic, while women and immigrants are potential pockets of growth, said Anne Kothawala, president and CEO of the Canadian Newspaper Association.

The Toronto Star rarely prints anything that questions the rationale of Canada's harmful immigration policy. It does at times but the paper mostly prints one sided immigrant puff pieces and sob stories on an almost daily basis that appeals to the reader’s emotions and the immigrant’s ego. The Toronto Star does not allow a balanced debate on the immigration issue. That's why the paper is popular with immigrants. It always wants more immigrants and from anywhere, it doesn't matter. You don't sabotage your growth potential by cutting off the source of your growth even if it is in the best interests of the nation. The Toronto Star, like any corporation, is a business first, patriot second.

Canada good at wooing professionals, but not at accepting their skills, immigrant saysSep 20, 2007 04:30 AMJoanna SmithStaff Reporter

When Alan Rego came to Canada from his native Singapore five years ago, he discovered the land of opportunity he had dreamed about was actually full of closed doors.

"Any effort I would try to make with employers, it seemed to me that from their point of view, they didn't have any reassurance or some way of knowing how good I am," said Rego, 50, who had worked as a communications professional for multi-national companies in Asia.

"The challenge was, how can I show them the skills I had were transferable?"

In time he overcame that hurdle, and is now installed as manager of external relations at Procter & Gamble in Toronto.

Mindful of his experience, Rego now devotes personal time to helping other skilled immigrants find their way in the Canadian job market.

Note - If the Canadian labour market is experiencing a drought of skilled labour then why are these immigrants having a hard time finding suitable employment? Why is Canada importing people who have no job waiting for them? Canada is just importing a superfluous population.

Dreaming of a better life for his two daughters, now 22 and 17, Rego arrived in Canada five years ago determined to join the top ranks of communications professionals here.

Note - Singapore is not some back water city state. It is modern, cosmopolitan, and it enjoys a high standard of living. I doubt that this man did not already live "a better life" in Singapore as a communications professional and I am certain his daughters could pursue "a better life" in Singapore as well. So what would compel an immigrant to give up their middle-class lifestyle to come to Canada? I think it is greed. Many immigrants to Canada, particularly those from South Asia, already lived the "better life" in their native countries, better lives, in fact, in relation to their Canadian counterparts. It boggles my mind why they would give up all that they have achieved, or inherited, just to come to Canada and live in mediocrity.

When he came up against the doubts of potential employers on whether his skills would apply in a Canadian setting, Rego made ends meet by working as a financial adviser and market researcher.

Canada does a "great job" attracting professionals to move here, he said yesterday. "But the inconvenient truth staring us in the face is that we are not doing a good enough job of using their skills."

Here is yet another immigrant who derailed his life to peruse an imagined one in Canada. Canada's immigration industry is partly to blame. They perpetuate stories of wealth and prosperity in Canada that appeals to the materialist fantasies of immigrants so as to attract an ever growing client base that keeps immigration lawyers, consultants, etc. employed. When their stories turn out to be lies the immigration industry then says that it is because of systemic discrimination thus painting Canadians as racists. It is not that systemic discrimination does not exist. What is "Canadian experience" anyways other than a barriers erected by the professional class to keep immigrants from flooding the labour market and negatively affecting their incomes?

However the immigrant is also to blame. Enough immigrants had had their dreams of "a better life" in Canada squashed that Canada has developed a negative reputation abroad. But I think most immigrants choose to ignore this and opt instead to believe that it won't happen to them. And if it doesn't work out then drive a cab for three years and then go back home with Canadian citizenship in hand and don't return until it is time to retire. But don't forget to drop the kids and parents off first.

Tuesday, 18 September 2007

Admittedly, the nondescript headquarters of the world's largest publicly listed Chinese fast-food chain isn't easy to find, hidden deep in Hong Kong's industrial hinterland. Still, it's hard to miss its public face, Café de Coral, a franchise with 300 restaurants in Hong Kong and mainland China, as well as the Manchu Wok chain in North America. It should be an obvious target for the Canadian food industry, especially since the chairman is, in fact, a Canuck. But aside from buying the odd pig knuckle from Canadian hog producers, Michael Chan, a University of Manitoba grad and former Edmonton urban planner, says he hasn't heard hide nor hair from his compatriots. "We would be a natural partner," says the Hong Kong-born Chan. "But for some reason there are hardly any strong business ties with Canada."

Note - What makes Chan a Canuck? "Canuck" is a nickname for Canadians like Aussie is for Australians, Kiwi is for New Zealanders, and Yankee is for Americans. However, I wouldn't consider an illegal Mexican immigrant in the U.S. a Yankee and I still wouldn't consider him one if he obtained U.S. citizenship and I doubt neither would anyone else. Nicknames are a more enduring moniker for a people than their citizenship. Chan may have obtained Canadinan citizenship but he is hardly a "Canuck". He was born in Hong Kong and immigrated to Canada and moved back to Hong Kong. Is he still a "Canuck"? I don't think so.

Café de Coral, when pronounced in Chinese, actually means "come together." Yet it's indicative of a yawning gulf between Canada and a potentially powerful diaspora that could be an ideal springboard into the booming Chinese market, but has instead become a byword for missed opportunity.

Note - The word "Diaspora" is misused quite often and it is misused here. A Diaspora is a group of people spread around the world who posses a common history and culture but with no homeland to call their own. A good example is the pre-Israel Jewish people. The Chinese in Canada are hardly a Diaspora. Their settlement patterns in Canada characterize them more as colonialists more than anything. And Canadians living abroad, not the part-time Canadians like Chan, are not a Diaspora either.

While Ottawa has no idea how many Canadians live abroad, the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada calculates there are 2.7 million overseas passport holders, equivalent to nine per cent of Canada's population. Proportionally, it's the world's fourth largest diaspora -- outpacing even China and India -- and includes some of Asia's wealthiest and most influential business people. Yet they are at best overlooked and at worst distrusted, a casualty of Canada's perennial inability to globalize its economy.

Note - Wow!!! There are 2.7 million Canadians living overseas!? Nine per cent of our population!? The world's fourth largest Diaspora surpassing even China and India!? Should I laugh because I don't find this funny?

Hong Kong, the mountainous archipelago known for its typhoons and tycoons, is a case in point. An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 Canadians make up the enclave's single largest contingent of foreign passport holders and Canada's largest diaspora outside the U.S.

Note - This is an outrage. Recall that 50,000 "Canadians" were registered in Lebanon at one single time composing the single largest cohort of foreign nationals in the country. This is more so than France, a country that has a history with Lebanon.

Their ranks read like a who's who of Hong Kong's rich and powerful: from Victor Li, scion of Li Ka-shing, one of the world's richest men, to the family of fellow real estate and jewellery tycoon, Cheng Yu-Tung. In neighbouring Macau, the son of Stanley Ho, known as "the king of gambling" and the island's richest man, is also a citizen, while Edmund Ho, Macau's chief executive, is an alumnus of York University. "How many countries have such a proportion of citizens living overseas in such positions of influence?" notes David Fung, a Hong Kong-born Vancouver entrepreneur. "Yet we don't manage to use them to any significant extent."

Note - This makes sense when one remembers Hong Kong's rich and powerful lining up at western embassies seeking "asylum" from communist China since Hong Kong was to be handed over to Beijing's rule in 1999. Since nothing happened, all the rich and powerful returned to Hong Kong but with a western passport in tow just in case. Canada was, and still is, a choice destination for these Hong Kong opportunists. Canada has one of the most relaxed rules for obtaining citizenship in the western world and we expect the least amount of commitment from our immigrants. Canada is also one of the few countries in the world that recognizes dual citizenship thus lessening one's commitment to this country.

To many diaspora Chinese the answer is pretty obvious: they are not considered true Canadians.

Note - That's because they don't want to be however they do love Canada's socialized health system which explains why they retain their Canadian citizenship.

For some, that ambivalence is, at least, partly earned. Many Hong Kong passport holders see Canada as at best a weigh station for picking up an education and language training, and at worst a "jail," where they serve a three-year sentence in return for an extra passport and access to free health care. While wives live in McMansions around Vancouver, husbands working in Hong Kong claim poverty-level incomes in Canada to avoid the taxman. "They think Canadians are suckers," says Patrick Chun, a Hong Kong-born Vancouverite. "There's no loyalty to Canada. Why in the world would we want to give people like that Canadian passports?"

Note - Are you angry? I hope so because when I read this I was infuriated and I still am. Who the hell do these people think they are? Who the hell do they take Canadians for? I have come across this systemic abuse of Canadian generosity by Chinese nationals before. I read about it in a Toronto Star article about a female immigrant from Hong Kong who was studying in Canada to be a nurse. She said she planned to stay and work in Canada instead of returning to Hong Kong like so many of her fellow Hong Kong and Chinese immigrants do after they obtain Canadian citizenship.

John Yuen has the classic good looks and well-toned body of a college athlete. He'd rather crunch bones on a rugby pitch than window-shop in a Hong Kong mall -- a love of sports he attributes to his school years at Upper Canada College in Toronto, where he immigrated at the age of 6. But though Yuen spent his formative years in Canada, he says that if he were competing at the Olympics, he's not sure which country he'd represent. "I want to say Canada, but apart from being educated and growing up there for a time, there's not much of a connection," says the 30-year-old. "I wouldn't call it home."

Note - I have experienced this attitude among many immigrants to Canada. What strikes me is that they feel no shame in expressing it. Canada is just a stepping stone to them. It is socialized medicine and an education. It is a lifestyle but it is not home.

While Canadians observed with indifference as the wave of Hong Kong immigrants that washed ashore in the late 1980s inevitably flowed back home a decade later, Yuen is indicative of a more worrisome trend: a second generation of Chinese immigrants with little affinity for the country that raised them. Instead, their Western education and cross-cultural skills are building the global stature of Hong Kong and Shanghai, with no benefit to Canada. "The older generation is already a writeoff," admits Amy Wong, whose seven aunts and uncles have already come to Canada and gone. "The lingering question is the younger generation."

...

Not surprisingly, Canada is seen as a peaceable place to retire or raise kids, but no beacon of business.

Note - In other words let Canada foot the bill when it comes to taking care of their kids, their aged relatives, and taking care of them when they return to retire. God forbid they pay their fair of taxes.

It is left reaping many of the negatives of a wide-open immigration policy, and little reward. "I don't see any benefits to having a large diaspora," says SFU's DeVoretz, who argues an ever-growing expat community devalues the Canadian passport and raises security concerns. Canada also faces a potentially "huge crisis" when elderly passport holders suddenly remember their citizenship, warns Robert Zweig, director of the Center on China's Transnational Relations at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "All these people have the right to come back to Canada," says Zweig. "Do you know how much it costs to die?"

Note - I am outraged. I wonder if this is what it will take for Canadians to see the light and demand a change to our immigration policy.

Canada needs to ensure better integration and more commitment from prospective newcomers, say experts. Suggestions include upping the three-year residency requirement and charging returnees health care premiums. Canada should also reform the tax system, which encourages the diaspora to cut ties with Canada, in favour of a U.S.-style tax on worldwide income. But most importantly, Canada needs to see its diaspora as a resource rather than a writeoff, says Zweig.

Note - Now there's a good idea but I doubt it will get done. Demanding that kind of commitment nowadays from immigrants is like pulling teeth. No political party will touch it without fear of losing the ethnic vote.

A Hong Kong native who immigrated to Canada in 1970 at 19, Hui encourages his fellow Canadians to make the move to China, but it's tough. Canadian chains like Delta and Sandman Hotels are nowhere to be seen, and while Hui brings over Canadian hospitality students to train at his hotel, it's impossible to source wallpaper or furnishings from Canadian companies without a local Chinese presence. "If I know of a Canadian manufacturer, I would try to use them, but I don't get a whole lot of connection," says Hui, who just sold his Vancouver restaurant, the Pink Pearl. "It's been very exciting," he says with a smile. "I just wish I could see more Canadians doing the same or even bigger things."

These people are not Canadians. They never were and never will be. They are opportunistic, money driven Hong Kong and Chinese immigrants yet these are they kinds of people Canada is throwing its citizenship away to. It's not just Hong Kong and Chinese immigrants but many other foreign nationals are possessed of similar attitudes toward Canada and Canadians. They are Canadian in passport only. Canada's citizenship requirements have been so relaxed, so cheapened by the immigration industry that it encourages this kind of abuse and disloyalty from Canada's immigrants. This is why I started this blog and speak out when I can. This is abuse and it infuriates me how these people regard my country and my citizenship. I expect a certain degree of loyalty from this nation's immigrants but apparently that is too much to ask for some. Why are we brining these types of people here? They don’t deserve Canadian citizenship and it is unfortunate that we cannot strip them of it as easily as it was for them to obtain it.

Canada should not be so pro-immigration obsessed. An increasing foreign portion of our population only encourages the kind of disloyalty and abuse displayed by these Hong Kong born pseudo-Canadians. The Canadian government should focus on increasing the natural birth rate and not immigration numbers. That way we can foster a population that identifies with this country and will be loyal to it though being born here does not always guarantee that. Being a Canadian is more than just a passport.

Thursday, 13 September 2007

Teen stabbed by school had sought healer's help, was possible target of an old grudge, his pastor says

Sep 13, 2007 04:30 AMTamara CherryStaff Reporter

The night before he died, 16-year-old Dineshkumar Murugiah spent a long time discussing his future with a high-profile spiritual leader visiting Toronto.

"He was talking about how he wanted to concentrate on his study more and concentrate on his life very much," according to senior pastor David Loganthan of Miracle Family Temple in Scarborough, describing the slain youth's conversation with Dr. Ananda Stira.

Note - Scarborough is home to a large concentration of Tamils among others.

Stira is a TV evangelist who runs the Ministry of Jesus in Tamil Nadu in south India.

...

Murugiah's parents, who moved here from Sri Lanka in the late 1990s because "they wanted a better life for Dinesh," went to Loganathan for help.

Living in Toronto for as long as I have and reading the Toronto Star on a daily basis I have come to notice some predictable trends in the crime reports. Drug busts, for instance, involve Chinese (ecstasy, heroin) and Vietnamese (pot), and to a lesser extent South Asians for some reason but mostly Tamils, disproportionately more so than the numbers of their respective communities should warrant. When a murder is reported you can almost always bet the farm that the victim and the perpetrator are black (read Jamaican) but if the murder happened to take place in Scarborough you can almost always be sure it is Tamil. A lot of the violent crime in Toronto is committed by visible minorities and some groups stand out the most. Jamaicans take the lead with Tamils following a close second and Indo-Canadians following a distant third. How can I say this? Well, I read the newspaper and not just any but the pro mass-immigration Toronto Star.

The article doesn't specify that the victim was Tamil but who are we kidding? Sri Lanka is predominately Singhalese Buddhist. The slain teen visited a pastor. Canada has the highest concentration of Sri Lankan Tamils outside of Sri Lanka mostly due to the abuse of our lax refugee laws reaching a peak in 1991 when Tamils formed the largest growing ethnic community in Toronto. Bear in mind that Tamil Nadu, the Southern Indian province where Tamil is the predominant language, is literally across the street from Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan Tamils are economic migrants posing as refugees and since Canada is "the land of trusting fools" Canadians can say that their country is home to yet another ethnic colony that is the largest outside of particular country (Somalis and Sikhs fall in here to for the same reasons). To drive home this point, Canada had and still has a general acceptance rate of 76% for all Sri Lankan (read Tamil) refugee claims. This is in comparison to Britain with a 2% acceptance rate and Germany with a 4% acceptance rate. Humans will follow the path of least resistance and if there has been any country that has so willingly surrendered itself to a foreign intrusion it is modern day Canada (save the France jokes).

And what has Canada gotten in return for such foolish generosity? Nothing much, really. We lost six federal ridings to a group of people who continue to push their foreign conflict onto the national agenda, Tamil gang violence both domestic and imported, and a general disturbance of the peace. Sure, you can say most are law abiding but just because you obey the law doesn't mean you are not a headache. Besides, if you consider refugee fraud a criminal offense then no, most are not law abiding citizens but since Canada's immigration and refugee laws are not real laws anyways then ho harm no foul I suppose.

There shouldn't be these many Tamils in Canada if our refugee laws were correctly and justly applied. Canada's refugee laws are for real refugees not these Tamil frauds. And considering the behaviour of many Tamils in Toronto I say they don't deserve to be here.

For smaller communities that have been off immigrants' radar screens, help has finally arrived.

Starting tomorrow, Ontario's Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration will start promoting an immigration fast-tracking program that helps employers faced with labour shortages to bring in workers from abroad.

A series of seminars will be conducted around the province and websites will offer details on the opportunities and settlement support available in various communities.

Note - Smaller communites are typically bereft of "diversity" of the multicult kind. Since the vast majority of immigrants come from the developing world, primarily India and China, these communities may be getting more than they are asking for. However, the vast majority of immigrants eventually settle in and around Canada's major urban centers. I can see how this policy will be abused. It's just another opened door.

The program, quietly launched this summer, allows the province to nominate applicants for immigration based on labour needs and provincial priorities, to help employers and multinational corporations in Ontario recruit and retain foreign-trained workers.

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Employers pay a nonrefundable fee of $2,000 for each application, or $200 for international students already in Canada.

Over twenty-five years of mass immigration and Canada still cannot meet its labour needs. One major reason is that almost half of Canada's immigrants with some saying as much as 75% do not enter Canada as skilled immigrants. Most are the sponsored relatives of landed immigrants and refugees and their sponsored relatives. These people do not need to meet the same requirements that skilled immigrants do to get into the country. The family reunification aspect of Canada's immigration policy does not meet the economic and labour needs of this country but it does get you voted into office and it does keep a myriad of "professionals" employed in the immigration industry. All you need is one successful immigration application and one successful refugee claim and you get the whole family. For over two decades Canada has been importing a largely superfluous population but this is good news for employers looking to exploit cheap labour.

More to the point is that immigration is in the same league as any other form of economic exploitation of the developing world since most of Canada's immigrants are poached from the third world. These countries need their skilled labour more so than we do yet the funny is that even this form of third-world exploitation has the support of those on the political left and other self-proclaimed "progressives". These are the people who protest trade meetings, throw rocks through windows, organize globalization protests, harangue western based corporations for the exploitation of third world workers and resources yet support the exploitation of the developing world's most important resource: its human resource.

Also mass immigration has become more of a weapon against working Canadians and their families by flooding the labour market with exploitable labour thus having a depressing effect on wages and salaries. Mass immigration also increase demand for such things as housing driving rents and housing prices skyward. This only hurts the most economically vulnerable of Canadians yet I still have to see the left and other so-called “progressives” protest this at a workers rights rally or an affordably hosing demonstration.

The greatest insult is that this is the Ontario government and the private sector investing in foreigners as opposed to Ontarians. There are many who are unemployed or underemployed. It is these people who should be trained to fill labour shortages first. We should only turn to immigration if it is absolutely necessary. But considering the fact that it is mostly low skilled and low wage paying employers in the retail and hospitality sectors crying for workers then perhaps third world immigrants are the apt choice. After all, they should be used to being exploited by now.

I've noticed that many drug busts and counterfeiting/fraud investigations occur in parts of Canada with a heavy concentration of Chinese immigrants. I guess Chinese drug trafficking and piracy is part of that whole multicultural thing. You know, if Canada didn't import so many immigrants we would be able to weed these people out but since immigration is more about numbers than importing quality future Canadians, no one in Ottawa, let alone the Toronto Star or CBC for that matter, really gives a damn.

Note - Like Markham, Richmond B.C. has a large Chinses population as well. The reason is because Richmond sounds like "rich man" in English. For this reason Richmond Hill, Ontario, Markham's neighbour to the west, has a large Chinese population as well.

Also serving time for conspiracy to produce a controlled substance is Khai Cuong Ly, 28, of Vancouver who was sentenced earlier this year to seven years. Huo Zhong Tan, 30, was sentenced in 2006 to five years in prison for production of a controlled substance and has since been paroled. King Fung Ho, 51, Hughes Souligny, 37, and En Ming Hee, 31, all of British Columbia, were sentenced in 2005 for conspiracy to produce a controlled substance. All have been paroled.

With mass immigration comes a greater inability to screen undesirables. Because of this Canada is importing criminal elements from other countries. In this case Canada has imported the Chinese drug trade, and counterfeiting trade I might add, much like Canada has imported the dysfunctional and crime ridden culture of Jamaica. We have also imported Tamil thugs who lied to get their way into Canada just like their more law abiding countrymen. Vancouver has a large Chinese population, so much so that it is oftentimes referred to as “Hongcouver”. Vancouver is also North America’s heroin capital. Heroin is made from opium. Opium was introduced into China by the drug pushing powers of the U.S. and Britain in the nineteenth century. This resulted in the “opium wars” as China tried to defend its country from being turned into a nation of heroin addicts. Now a section of Vancouver is a “nation of heroin addicts”. Coincidence? Probably.

Right now China is Canada’s top immigrant producing country and one of the top ten refugee producing countries. With less immigration numbers Canada can more adequately screen its immigrants. Right now we don't have the resources and hiring more staff and throwing more money at the issue would only throw more millions on the pile of billions Canada already spends to service the immigration industry. It's the numbers folks. Canada does not need to import 250,000+ people a year most of whom should not be here.

This is the largest drug bust in Canadian history. The largest mass murder in Canadian history was committed by Indian immigrants of the Sikh faith. What am I inferring? Nothing really I guess. It just ticks me off.

There are many factors contributing the current doctor shortage Canada is facing. One of them is greed as Canadian doctors move to the U.S. where they will be over compensated (average income is U.S$195,000 compared to CDN$92,000 here in Canada) and helping make basic health care inaccessible to 40 million Americans (now that's what I call "helping people"). But to what extent has mass immigration contributed to the doctor shortage here in Canada? No study exists; well none that I know of at least, that focuses on this question but I suspect mass immigration has contributed to it greatly. My suspicions are justified if we consider that Canada has been introducing around 250,000 people a year, about one million over four years, for over the past twenty years into Canadian society with full health coverage as guaranteed by the, sigh, Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. If we do not have a corresponding increase in doctors to meet that rapid population increase then Canada will have a doctor shortage to some degree because demand has now increased for this limited resource. How is this servicing the needs of Canadians? How are we being compassionate, and not be hypocritical, if the answer to this problem is to poach the third world, an act that has been condemned by the World Health Organization, of its much needed medical professionals?

I contend that much of Canada's health care problems could have been lessened if not avoided outright were it not for mass immigration and a more sander immigration policy. Much of Canada's immigrants are the aged relatives of landed immigrants and refugees. We do not need them here. Canada has a responsibility to its own seniors, not to those of India or China. Many Canadians have worked all their life and paid into a public health care system only to have to suffer long wait times because immigrants have created a backlog in the system. This is not just. This is not right. This is wrong and it is an incredible injustice to Canadians. This is why Canada needs to immediately reduce its immigrant intake. The status quo will only make matters worse.